I remember reading an interesting historical perspective on why Americans were not willing to disarm themselves. Pre civil-war, it was because the settlers needed guns to protect themselves as they were few in numbers in a really large country that also saw territorial disputes in the exploitation of resources. The gun made the early Americans feel secure in hostile territories. Post civil-war, some historians claim that many on both sides of the war weren't willing to give up their arms because they weren't confident that the peace would be lasting. Many others were also afraid that the former negro slaves might organise and revolt now that many among them had some military experience. Thus, for the sake of peace, the compromise was made to make disarming a low priority, and a "right to bear arms" was emphasised to reassure the critics.
You are right that when such incidents happen, there are protests by activists to bring tighter regulations and / or even calls to disarm citizens. Some US states have listened and increased regulations in response to such demands - like not making it easy to buy arms without a background check, or limiting what kind of guns can be bought and owned by civilians, limiting convicted criminals from buying arms etc.
An interesting political perspective to emerge in the debate on gun control in the US is that the US politicians on both side are not in favour of disarming private citizens. The theory is that it gives them a ready excuse to militarise and arm the police with even more deadly weapons. And to allow excess use of force by the police against the citizen without inviting much criticism. This fear can be used to dampen democratic political protests, and many do say that the size and scale of protests in US have reduced over the decades, and claim this is a "chilling effect" of militarising the police. (Another interesting tidbit I found really mind-boggling is that the police / FBI can and do actually buy old armaments from the US military!).
Don't forget that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War some of the first gun control laws were passed. Specifically, the laws restricted ownership of firearms to particular models that the newly freed Black population would be unlikely to be able to afford. The effect was essentially disarmament of the Black population in the South.
>The Army and Navy Law prohibited the sale of "belt or pocket pistols, or revolvers, or any other kind of pistols, except army or navy pistols", which were prohibitively expensive for black freedmen and poor whites to purchase.
You are right that when such incidents happen, there are protests by activists to bring tighter regulations and / or even calls to disarm citizens. Some US states have listened and increased regulations in response to such demands - like not making it easy to buy arms without a background check, or limiting what kind of guns can be bought and owned by civilians, limiting convicted criminals from buying arms etc.
An interesting political perspective to emerge in the debate on gun control in the US is that the US politicians on both side are not in favour of disarming private citizens. The theory is that it gives them a ready excuse to militarise and arm the police with even more deadly weapons. And to allow excess use of force by the police against the citizen without inviting much criticism. This fear can be used to dampen democratic political protests, and many do say that the size and scale of protests in US have reduced over the decades, and claim this is a "chilling effect" of militarising the police. (Another interesting tidbit I found really mind-boggling is that the police / FBI can and do actually buy old armaments from the US military!).